AUSTRALIA
The Standard
By CLARKE QUIRK
March 22, 2013
THE head of Australia’s leading church-related sexual abuse support service has called for the Victorian parole board to reflect on the seriousness of former south-west priest Gerald Ridsdale’s crimes.
Ridsdale is eligible for release on parole in June this year after originally being sentenced in the Warrnambool County Court to a maximum 18 years’ imprisonment in 1994 when he pleaded guilty to 46 charges involving 21 boys and girls between 1961 and 1982.
He has since been sentenced in two additional hearings which added time to the original sentence.
Ridsdale, who will be 79 years old when he is eligible for parole, is considered to be one of Victoria’s most prolific child sex offenders.
Broken Rites president Chris McIsaac said the decision on whether Ridsdale was released on parole was up to the parole board.
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